The Pope County Quorum Court voted to reduce courthouse hours at its meeting Thursday.

The ordinance, which was adopted by a 9-3 vote, will change the courthouse’s hours of operation to 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. They have been 8-5.

The change came about due to the inconvenience of staggering employees’ shifts. Currently, a group of courthouse employees work from 8-4:30, and another group comes in half an hour later and works from 8:30-5.

“We have a crew coming in at 8 and getting off at 4:30, and people coming in at 8:30 and getting off at 5,” Pope County Judge Jim Ed Gibson said. “That means that the offices were understaffed the first part of the day and the end of the day. We have courthouse security here, so that meant we have to bring another officer in here for part of the day.”

“Those things all cost money,” he continued. “We need to be looking at every way we can to save, whether it’s a penny, dime, nickel or dollar.”

The courthouse’s current hours were previously approved in 2009 and was a hotly debated issue for many area residents.

Gibson said employees will work the same amount of hours as before, but that there will be uniformity in their shifts.

“We just think that we all need to come to work at the same time, and get off work at the same time,” he said.

David Ivy, a justice of the peace who voted against the ordinance, disagreed with Gibson, saying that the new hours do not represent a full workday, which causes concern for Pope County residents.

“Nobody that I’ve talked to thinks it should’ve been changed,” he said. “Normal business hours are from 8 to 5. If you talk to people who work every day, 8-to-5 is a workday.”

“You can cover 8-to-5 by simply alternating your lunch hours,” he added. “You don’t have to split the shifts up. You can just stagger the lunches and no one loses any time.”